Harvey brings death, destruction to Houston as flood waters rise

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HOUSTON - Floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey, which has already killed at least seven people in Texas and was expected to drive tens of thousands from their homes, are likely to rise, officials warned on Monday, as heavy rain continued to pound the U.S. Gulf Coast.

National Guard troops, police officers, rescue workers and civilians raced in helicopters, boats and special high-water trucks to rescue the hundreds still stranded in and around Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city.

The storm was the most powerful hurricane to strike Texas in more than 50 years when it hit land on Friday near Corpus Christi, 220 miles (354 km) south of Houston, and the worst is far from over, as the National Weather Service issued numerous regional flood warnings.

U.S. President Donald Trump plans to go to Texas on Tuesday to survey the damage and may, in the future, visit Louisiana, where the storm is now dumping rain.

Trump, facing the biggest U.S. natural disaster since he took office in January, has signed disaster proclamations for Texas and Louisiana, triggering federal relief efforts.

Harvey has killed at least six people in Harris County, where Houston is located, said Tricia Bentley, a spokeswoman for the county coroner’s office, including a man who died in a house fire on Friday night and an elderly woman driving through flooded streets on the city’s west side the next day.

A 60-year-old woman died in neighboring Montgomery County when a tree fell on her trailer home while she slept, the medical examiner said on Twitter. With others missing, the toll could rise.

Both of Houston’s major airports were shut, along with most major highways, rail lines and a hospital, where patients were evacuated over the weekend. By Monday evening, 267,000 Texans had been left without power in the state’s southeast corner.

One of three main rivers crossing Houston, the Brazos, was expected to crest sometime on Tuesday at 59 feet (18 meters), the National Weather Service said. The San Jacinto River was expected to crest over Interstate 10, the city’s major east-west artery.

Rising river and reservoir levels forced the order of additional evacuations in the counties of Brazoria, Galveston and Fort Bend.